A few have said I look like Chris McCandless, Alexander Supertramp. My trip almost ended like his. That is nothing to be proud of. A few have said, what a character building experience. Perseverance, determination build character.

I never, ever want to go through what I went through Thursday night.

I laid in my sleeping bag for almost eighteen hours, interrupted by efforts to evacuate to a road.

Showing up at camp after dark did not help. It sure was not the first of my mistakes that led to such suffering that night.

The layers went on as my body cooled off after a racing hike to get to camp. But it was not enough. After hours, and hundreds of push ups, finally I gave in to the emergency blanket. This was a commitment to leaving the woods the next day. I had promised myself that if I were unprepared enough to need the use of this then I may not be prepared for what the next night may have to offer.

The wind just infiltrated every layer and the bitter cold, dry air circulating in my lungs, sucked every spare degree of warmth I had. It was down to surviving the night. Park rangers would have looked for desperate hikers earlier in the night but it was too late.

Earlier they intercepted my friend Nat and I, declaring the weather was too bad for him to continue. They put their foot down for him. They drove him back to his car. But how can I abandon my thru-hike before I find my limit? Am I just supposed to assume tonight will be my limit?

So I gave it a shot. I did my best. I tried to succeed. Yeah all that glorious bull that sounds good on a sports field and in a classroom. But out here it is natural selection. There is no insurance, no medicare. There are no food stamps, no homeless shelters. If I screw up, I clean up the mess.

I’m the last of a group of five that hiked together just three states back. And I’m the only one that is wondering about tomorrow. My toes and finger tips are stiff and I hesitate to press them to an artery to save my core body heat.

I took a trip to the privy in the early morning, not for the typical reason. The privy is four sided, unlike shelters, and the decomposing waste gives off a significant amount of heat. So I tried to run down the mountain and get water out of the spring, carrying the heat and odor of crap along with me. My near frozen hands could not keep me from spilling water all over my gloves. I shook my hands off quickly, looked down and my gloves were already frozen, less than fifteen seconds later. I know I did something right to have made it through the night at this point.

But it was back to the sleeping bag, core heat stable, but the temperature was testing my fingers.

When finally I managed to get feeling back, I reached out of my sleeping bag, turned my phone on to call home asking for a ride.

Battery too low for radio use.

Damn it.

It was back to my ice-covered sleeping bag to rethink the situation. I thought, its Friday, there will be people on the road. But the last thing I want is to get out to the road, find I am waiting so long that I need to build a fire.

I looked down at a stack of half living and half wet wood in the corner of the shelter. I gathered all of my trash, bundled it up, and tried to get a fire started as I ran around in circles, did jumping jacks, everything I could to stay warm. The wood caught. I bent over and blew. I ran to the pile of wood and gathered some more of the wet wood. I stacked and stacked to dry the wood as the fire built and soon enough I had a warm blaze.

Its time to get out of here. I stripped my mylar bivy sack from the top of my sleeping bag to see what looked like snow covering my bag. I shook out the bivy sack and more of this “snow” came out.

With extra pack space due to wearing all of my extra clothes, I easily packed my pack, threw snow on the fire, and ran out. I reached the road and began looking around for small wood.

My plan was to stop any car that came by, ranger or tourist. They would understand after I explained. But after mere seconds of waiting, a maintenance worker drove up.

“Too cold, huh?”

He knew exactly why I was out here. He drove me to the ranger station and dropped the “desperate hiker” off.

I’m home now but I cannot sleep. I had not slept that entire night and with the warmth and comfort of a bed surrounded by four walls, I still cannot sleep.

My limit was found last night. But my trip is not done. I am back to enhance my preparation and gear. I am rereading my book on winter camping and searching for the warmest gear I can find. I am not going to mess this up again. I am fine with letting Georgia wait two more weeks to ensure that I will see Georgia.

But Georgia still remains ‘always on my mind’.

The idea that a cultural movement begins or ends with the flip of a calendar is, of course, fallacious. ”60s Music” is an identifier of a specific strain of popular music that really refers to the time period, between 1965 (mid-career Beatles) and 1976 (The Sex Pistols). What we think of as the Golden Era of 70s movies began, arguably, with The Graduate in 1967 (or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the year before) and ended with Raging Bull in 1980.

For now anyway, the 2000s can be called The Netflix Decade, a time when, in theory, more movies were more accessible to more people than ever before. That doesn’t necessarily mean everyone took advantage of this opportunity. Still, the idea that a movie, even one from say, Romania about abortion, can have a second life on video is encouraging. If you’re a stickler for lists, consider this the 90 (or so) best movies of the last ten years. What this era in film will ultimately be called is anyone’s guess, but, many films in this list, particularly those made in the US, reflect life in the Age of Terror, where the country was led by a man whose ambition far exceeded his abilities.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days – Over the last ten years there has been a rush, in relative terms anyway, of films from countries that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain. The best of these was a heartbreakingly frank film about the moral and practical dilemmas of abortion while Eastern Europe crumbled in the late 1980s. A movie of unflinching honesty. (2007)

8 Mile – Don’t laugh. Yes, Eminem played himself, but great movies put the viewer in a time and place and Curtis Hanson’s impeccable direction gives life to the hopelessness of Eminem’s Detroit ring of despair. The performances of Kim Basinger and Mekhi Phifer are first-rate.  The movie looks even more authentic now that Eminem has faded from the limelight. (2002)

21 Grams – The title refers to the amount of weight we lose after we die. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s follow-up to Amores Perros brought together a math professor (Sean Penn), a grieving housewife (Naomi Watts) and a re-born convict (Benicio Del Toro). The story isn’t arranged chronologically and the morality of what’s taking place is apparent before the full impact of the plot.

The 25^th Hour – Spike Lee’s least bombastic work. Three men (Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper) one of whom is preparing for a prison stint, re-assess their lives in New York City while terrorist occupied planes still echo in the background. The request made late in the film by Norton will make you gasp, but then nod in agreement with his logic. (2002)

About Schmidt – When Jack Nicholson’s wife dies he decides to rent an RV and drive around trying to avoid the realization that he’s a selfish creep. Alexander Payne’s portrait of aging shines even brighter when compared to the emptiness of another Nicholson film about old age released several years later—The Bucket List. Hope Davis is brilliant as Nicholson’s estranged daughter. (2002)

Almost Famous – The best fictional account of the rock and roll life this side of Spinal Tap. Billy Crudup hits every note as an ambivalent guitar hero. Philip Seymour Hoffman is hysterical as rock critic Lester Bangs. Cameron Crowe’s movie also launched the career of Kate Hudson, who plays a groupie. Don’t hold that against it. The “Tiny Dancer” sequence on the tour bus is sure to put a lump in your throat. (2000)

Amelie  – Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s fable starring Audrey Tautou is certain to become a beloved classic if it hasn’t achieved that status already. Jeunet and Tautou occupy a world that looks much like our own yet is eminently more just, hopeful and full of love. Engaging from any number of perspectives. (2001)

Amores Perros – The three-pronged story about how lives have been irreversibly altered by a car accident can only be described as awe-inspiring. It introduced the world to the massive talents of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Gael Garcia Bernal and the progenitors of Latin American Cinema. Much as Amores Perros is a child of Pulp Fiction, it is also the father to the acclaimed City of God. (2001)

Away From Her – This tiny movie about a woman (Julie Christie) coming to grips with Alzheimer’s raises challenging questions about the true nature of love, honesty and companionship. That Sarah Polley was only 27 when she directed this counts as a miracle. (2007)

Babel – Whereas Amores Perros’ and 21 Grams’ centerpiece were a singular event, Innaritu’s Babel centers on a singular feeling brought on by a digital, wireless age. It’s one of mutedness. We can speak to more people in more places than ever before, yet we still have no clue what to say. The characters’ eyes tell us everything we need to know about their hollowed-out existences. In Babel, continents are little more than land masses that separate people trying to cope with this new world. Brad Pitt has never been better. (2006)

The Beat That My Heart Skipped – Romain Duris dreams of becoming a concert pianist conflict with his father’s desire that he follow his footsteps into a life of low-level street thuggery. Director Jacques Audiard brings together the disparate physical and emotional universes that Duris occupies. Paris, probably the most-filmed movie locale in the world after New York, is presented in a new, fresh way. (2005)

Before Sunset – Nine years after Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy fell in love on a single night in Vienna they meet again. Except now they’re in Paris. But time has passed and things have changed. Or have they? A great idea executed to perfection by director Richard Linklater and the two leads. (2004)

Black Hawk Down – Mark Bowden’s searing chronicle of the US Army’s disaster in Somalia. Ridley Scott and a strong ensemble cast capture the frantic efforts of well-intentioned men in one impossible situation after another. (2001)

Bigger Faster Stronger* – A straightforward documentary about steroids and American culture by a first time director and former devotee of the weightlifting/bodybuilding scene. (2008)

Bloody Sunday – Made prior to United 93 and The Bourne movies, Paul Greengrass’ re-creation of the events of January 30, 1972 in Derry, Northern Ireland seethes with anger. (2002)

Borat – Far and away the best comedy in recent years. Although it dutifully serves its  function as a biting social satire, it’s the bar which other comedies strive for: “Yeah, (title) was pretty funny. But it’s no Borat.” (2006)

Bowling for Columbine – With the school shootings still fresh in the public mind Michael Moore’s film about America’s obsession with guns is a tour de force of filmmaking. It’s become the template for countless other issue-driven documentaries, but the original is still the best. Who could forget Moore emerging from a bank, gun in hand as gratitude for opening a new bank account? (2002)

Capote – I tend to resist portrayals of historical figures little more than overwrought imitations, but there are some performances that just throw you back in your seat. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s depiction of the caustic, gifted, tortured Truman Capote is such a performance. (2005)

The Dark Knight – One of the major secular features of Bush Era was rampant self-involvement. Facebook has turned the personal into the global scale. In a landscape where fame goes to those who are willing only to be more extreme than their predecessor, Heath Ledger, as the sadistic Joker tapped perfectly into this pathos while living up to unprecedented pre-release hype. Everything, onscreen and off, about The Dark Knight reflected the culture of entitlement. Mostly though, The Dark Knight delivered on all its promise.  The movie has flaws; Christian Bale’s smoky (or is it gravelly?) voice is an unneeded prop and the stunt make-up of Aaron Eckhart’s character is unnecessary. That said, it performs the near impossible—a summer blockbuster whose story and message stays with you for days, if not weeks. (2008)

Darwin’s Nightmare – A documentary about the perch in Lake Victoria that shows the social and political effects of an ecological nightmare. While An Inconvenient Truth was the environmental movie that bagged the awards and attention, Hubert Sauper’s movie chilled and moved. (2005)

Eastern Promises –  David Cronenberg re-emerged with A History of Violence, but its follow-up was far more entertaining. Naomi Watts’ London midwife stumbles across the Russian mob, as personified by Viggo Mortensen, cultures clash, mayhem ensues–including a grisly fight in a steam bath. (2007)

Edge of Heaven – The best movies of the decade made outside the US addressed the blurring of boundaries among class, race, ethnicity or sexuality. Fatih Akin’s film about a German Turk who moves to Istanbul in order to find his half-sister makes you wonder if maybe boundaries aren’t such a bad thing. (2008)

Elephant – Gus Van Sant’s take on school violence is haunting. The impending carnage looms over the characters to such a degree that, as an audience member, you want to shake them by the shoulders and tell them to run before the bullets start flying. (2003)

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room – The best of its type. A traditional talking-heads documentary that harnesses the national outrage of the Enron collapse and the subsequent dominoes that fell. Names are named and we’re given plenty of reason to hold those mentioned in absolute contempt. (2005)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – I resisted this as too gimmicky at first and I don’t buy Jim Carrey doing anything serious, but on a second viewing it struck me as a thoughtful consideration of how memory relates to romantic longing, especially considering it’s a major studio release. The rare instance of  when a blend of a potentially toxic mix of artists–Carrey, Kate Winslet, Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman results in a coherent final product.  (2004)

The Fall – A suicidal stunt man, an eight year old Eastern European immigrant girl who speaks accented English, Charles Darwin, Alexander the Great and many, many others people populate Tarsem Singh’s follow up to The Cell. Reportedly made without CGI, it’s unlike any film ever made. (2008)

Finding Nemo – A father clown fish loses track of his son clown fish. In desperate need of help in finding him, he is assisted by a pang fish with short-term memory. That the movie somehow takes a parent’s worst nightmare and turns it into something cute is a testament to its many charms. Edged Ratatouille and Up for a spot behind WALL-E on this list. (2003)

Garden State – While it’s easy to dismiss the movie as a tool for Zach Braff’s navel-gazing, Garden State appealed to people of a certain age, pre mid-life, who wondered, “What’s it all for?” It owes massive debts to The Graduate and the work of Wes Anderson but it’s a movie of and about its time. (2004)

George Washington – David Gordon Green’s somber sketch on poor black children in North Carolina plays like a Miles Davis number. The movie is all mood, but by the end, you feel like you know the kids in this movie intimately. (2000)

Gone Baby Gone – This may be a blasphemy in some quarters, but Ben Affleck’s directorial debut does Clint Eastwood better than Eastwood himself. It confronts many of the same issues as Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River the difference is the performance of Amy Ryan, as the world’s worst mother. (2007)

Good Night and Good Luck – George Clooney’s paean to an era gone by was meant to be a body blow to the modern media, where rumor and innuendo flourish. More than David Straitharn’s uncanny impersonation of Edward R Murrow, most the high points are the elegant singing of Dianne Reeves that served as a bridge scenes of increasing tension. (2005)

Goodbye Solo – Souleymane Sy Savane is  Solo, a Senegalese cab-driver in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (the Tar Heel State is a new hot spot for American Indie Cinema). He picks up a weary, southern man who asks that a few days from now Solo take him to Blowing Rock National Park, no questions asked. Ramin Bahrani’s movie is so loaded with symbolism it’s easy to overlook what an assured, confident piece of filmmaking it is. If there’s any justice, Savane will pick up an Oscar nomination this year. (2009)

Happy-Go-Lucky – How far does attitude go in life? At first glance Sally Hawkins’ Poppy is gratingly optimistic, but as Mike Leigh’s small masterpiece unfolds we see that Poppy is far more sophisticated than we’ve given her credit for. Furthermore, I can think of no film of this or an era that so lovingly presents a friendship between two women—Hawkins and Alexis Zegerman. They’re co-workers and have each other’s backs in ways that the girls from Sex and the City would never understand. (2008)

The House of Flying Daggers  – Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon set a standard that Zhang Yimou’s exhilarating epic set in the Tang Dynasty surpassed. That’s Ninth Century kids. Two police officers, with differing motives, force a gorgeous dancer to go undercover and infiltrate The House of Flying Daggers, a group of militants who steal from the rich and give to the poor. There’s a sequence where…ok forget that, watch it and you’ll instantly recognize why this movie is on a “Best of” list. (2004)

In America – After WALL-E this was the movie that stole my heart. Jim Sheridan directed a script he wrote with his daughters about a family a lot like their own. It’s the magical story of a family overcoming the loss of the youngest child through great sacrifice and a move to Hell’s Kitchen. Sarah and Emma Bolger, who play the precocious daughters, will steal your heart too. (2003)

In the Bedroom  – Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek have a son (Nick Stahl) who gets involved with an older woman (Marisa Tomei) estranged from her husband. When Stahl gets killed by the husband in a jealous fit Wilkinson must face his own thoughts of revenge in this wrenching drama directed by Todd Field. (2001)

In the Mood for Love – It’s 1962 Hong Kong and Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are neighbors who suspect their spouses of infidelity. Wong Kar-Wai’s film is in the grand tradition of a love story set against a society in upheaval, but simmers with a lust and eroticism all its own. Runner-up to Y Tu Mama Tambien for sexiest film of the decade. (2001)

In the Valley of Elah  – When Tommy Lee Jones’ son goes missing shortly after returning from a tour in Iraq, he sets out to find him. In the course of his quest he’s aided by Charlize Theron and the movie becomes a layered treatise about the war in Iraq, the military and family. In his best roles, Jones face says far more than any word could and that’s certainly the case in this movie, which takes its title from the site of David’s biblical battle with Goliath. (2007)

Into the Wild  – After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta, Chris McCandless, the child of well-to-do parents, gave away all his possessions and hitchhiked across America en route To Alaska. A wonderful companion to Jon Krakauer’s elegiac account of McCandless, Sean Penn’s movie brings together sweeping natural panoramas, marvelous supporting characters (Hal Holbrook especially) and a pitch-perfect score from Eddie Vedder. (2007)

Junebug – So many films about the clash between urban and rural ways of life resort to easy stereotypes, but Phil Morrison’s movie strikes just the right tone. Now living in Chicago, a son brings his art gallery-owning wife (the stunning Embeth Davidtz) to meet his parents in rural North Carolina. He re-acquaints himself with his brother whose wife (played by Amy Adams in the breakthrough performance of the decade) is pregnant. New conflicts arise as old wounds are re-opened. Celia Weston is delightful as the family matriarch. (2005)

Kontroll  – Nimrod Antal’s film about life in the Budapest subway system defies easy description. Every scene and piece of dialogue seems loaded with literal and metaphorical interpretations. And the metaphor can apply just as easily to the main characters as to life in Hungary after the fall of the Soviet Empire. (2005)

 Lilya 4-ever – Abandoned by her mother, 16 year-old Lilya must fend for herself in bleak, gray Estonia. She meets a young man different from the abusive thugs in her neighborhood. He is kind to her and promises to pull her out of her dire circumstances. Hopeful and desperate, she trusts him. Thinking they will run off to a slice of heaven, Lilya is instead lowered into a kind of Hell that can only be borne from the minds of the truly evil. Lukas Moodyson’s film muscles its way into the pit of your stomach and stays there for days.

Little Children  – The decade’s best movie about suburban dystopia and arguably Kate Winslet’s best performance. She plays an educated mother whose marriage is passionless. She begins an affair with Patrick Wilson –The Prom King, as he’s dubbed by the neighborhood mothers—whose marriage is  deteriorating while he attempts to pas the bar exam. Most memorable, however, is Jackie Earle Haley, a sex offender trying to start a new life while under the watchful eye of self-appointed moralist. (2006)

The Lives of Others – An engrossing film about the horrors of life on the front lines of the Cold War. Ulrich Muhe is a member of the Stasi in 1984 who listens in on the conversations of a playwright and his lover. His own life being one of boredom he becomes increasingly engrossed in those of his subject. Florian Heckel von Donnersmarck crafted a film of personal destruction while addressing contemporary issues of privacy in a time of unparalleled freedom. (2006)

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy – It will be hard to explain to future generations the impact that this series of films had on a populace put on perpetual edge in the age of terrorism. Thousands of people lined up to watch the entire trilogy, nine hours in total. It did not take much imagination to see the similarities between Peter Jackson’s sprawling epics and the state of world affairs. The stories of honor, mysticism, fellowship and duty in the face of an indefatigable enemy bent on an engineering an apocalypse resonated with millions of people who had never even heard of JRR Tolkien. (2001-2003)

Memento  – How Christopher Nolan began the decade. The taut Guy Pearce is covered from head to toe with tattoos. He’s also written himself hundreds of notes. The ink on both the paper and his skin is critical because he has no short term memory. In normal circumstances this would be quite the conundrum, but it’s worse because Pearce’s wife has been murdered and he’s trying to figure if he did it or if someone else did. Memento was that rare, visceral movie that left the audience in their seats after the house lights came up, catching their collective breaths. (2001)

Michael Clayton  – Where Good Night and Good Luck was a clarion call to a lazy media elite, George Clooney got back in front of the camera in this tightly written drama about corporate malfeasance. He’s a fixer who keeps small problems from becoming big ones. He must prevent an old friend gone crazy (a manic Tom Wilkinson) from jeopardizing a billion-dollar project while keeping the company lawyer (a scathing Tilda Swinton) at bay. Tony Gilroy’s movie recalls 70s classics like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor. (2007)

Minority Report - The back end (after Artificial Intelligence: AI) of a Steven Spielberg double-dip on the dire possibilities of the near future, blisters with energy. Tom Cruise plays a pre-crime officer—criminals are arrested before they commit their crimes—who finds himself caught up in agency politics that have far-reaching implications. Watch it again just to see how prescient it is, based on a Philip K. Dick novel. (2002)

Monster’s Ball  – An extremely graphic sex scene featuring Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton (ick) generated buzz, but Marc Forster’s depiction of troubled lives in the south is harrowing. Heath Ledger, Sean Combs and Peter Boyle are excellent in support of Berry’s raw performance. (2001)

The Motorcycle Diaries – Before he became a face on a t-shirt, Ernesto Guevera was called “Fuser” by his friends. As a student, he and a buddy traveled through South America on a beat up Norton 500. Gael Garcia Bernal is Che in Walter Salles’ exquisite travelogue about idealism colliding with reality. The Machu Picchu sequence is breathtaking. (2004)

Moulin Rouge! – Unapologetically over the top, Baz Luhrman’s was the best musical of the past ten years. A courtesan (Nicole Kidman) falls in love with a would-be poet (Ewan McGregor) much to the chagrin of a duke. This triangle is resolved in a splash of song, color and double-entendres. Jim Broadbent won an Oscar the following year in Iris, but he deserved it for his role as the ringmaster here. (2001)

The New World – Terrence Malick’s lyrical, contemplative rendering of the affair between John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahantas sweeps you up and carries you off to a place that only he seems to be able to construct. When the duties of colonization become too much, the stability of their relationship is threatened. (2005)

The Notebook – The moment you say, “Oh, come on! That would never happen!” you’ve missed the point. Every character in the movie is of a type and that very broadness is what makes the film such a timeless love story. (2004)

No Country for Old Men – Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh immediately joined the pantheon of cinematic psychos but Tommy Lee Jones is outstanding as sheriff trying to make sense of killer whose weapon of choice is a cattle prong. Josh Brolin is up to Jones’ lofty standards as Chigurh’s main target. Kelly MacDonald turns a potentially forgettable role as Brolin’s wife into the moral center of the film. While the movie may have caught fans of the Coen Brothers off-guard, it fits nicely in the canon of the makers of Miller’s Crossing, Fargo and Blood Simple. (2007)

Once  – Set in modern day Dublin, Glen Hansard is a Hoover repair man and Marketa Irglova is an immigrant caring for her mother and daughter. They are both amateur musicians and gradually they write songs together that reflect their growing feelings for each other. A small treasure. (2007)

Pan’s Labyrinth – In order to escape her sadistic stepfather in Franco’s Spain, a ten year-old girl imagines a secret world where she must perform three tasks to prove that she is, in fact, a princess. Fashioned by Guillermo Del Toro, who spent the decade creating worlds that exist just beyond the reach of our own. (2006)

Requiem for a Dream — Four disparate characters succumb to drug abuse. Most frightening in Darren Aronofsky’s film is the descent into madness of a woman collecting social security played by Ellen Burstyn. Far from a lecture, the movie shows in explicit detail how different people become addicted for different reasons.  (2000)

Sideways - In celebration of his philandering pal’s upcoming nuptials, Paul Giamatti takes him on a tour of California wine country. Like any good road movie, Alexander Payne’s film contrives one scenario after another in order to reveal something about the characters. What made Sideways different was the intensity of Giamatti’s portrayal of a man consumed by his own self-loathing. (2004)

The Station Agent – A thoughtful independent film from Thomas McCarthy about a dwarf (Peter Dinklage) who inherits an abandoned train station after his best friend dies. He’s subsequently harangued into friendship by a chatty hot dog vendor (Bobby Cannavale). The unlikely friends then encounter a woman (Patricia Clarkson) who is in mourning. Well-deserving of the many awards it picked up on the festival circuit. (2003)

Taxi to the Dark Side – Of the many righteously indignant documentaries criticizing the Bush Administration Alex Gibney’s was the best. It’s the story of an innocent Afghan cab driver who was tortured and killed while in US custody. He’s not a casualty of the madness of war, but rather, the victim of carefully vetted policy.  (2007)

There Will Be Blood  – P. T. Anderson’s sprawling epic of greed, oil and religion has a problematic ending but who could forget the opening scene, where Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, without saying a word, grunts his way into our psyche. He plunges one hole after another into the ground through the force of his personality, creating to a fortune but and future that will, most certainly, be bloody. An instant American classic. (2007)

Traffic  – The War on Drugs from the peripatetic camera of Steven Soderbergh. In his most complete film, he inspects many, if not all, aspects of the struggle and concludes that the effort has been a colossal failure. Sturdy performances by Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Quaid, Don Cheadle and Michael Douglas anchor a somewhat chaotic enterprise. (2000)

Waking Life – Richard Linklater’s mind-massaging meditation on truth, reality, dreams and just about everything else washes over you like a hot shower. The fact that it merges animates live action characters pushes it to the stuff of legend. An exponentially better “alternative reality” film than Mulholland Drive. (2001)

WALL-E – The other major secular strain brought on by the reign of error that was the Bush presidency was conspicuous consumption. Remember that he suggested we go shopping in the weeks after planes were crashed into the financial and political capitols of the country. And we did. Boy did we spend. The magicians at Pixar presented the down side of this approach to calming our collective nerves, while telling a tender love story. If you didn’t go “awwwww” at least once while watching WALL-E may God have mercy on your soul. (2008)

Waltz With Bashir  – Perhaps the first and last of its kind. An animated documentary about an Israeli soldier’s memories of a battle that occurred some twenty years earlier. Ari Folman’s autobiographical story of The Lebanese War had the unique distinction of reminding you of several other films while still being thoroughly original. (2008)

Y Tu Mama Tambien – The sexiest movie of the decade. Maribel Verdu joins Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna on a road trip from Mexico City to a mysterious beach with no strings attached. Much steaminess follows. (2002)

You Can Count on Me  – Before starring in Kenneth Lonergan’s movie Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo had minor roles in minor movies. They play a brother and sister who are connected by a tragic event from their past. Each day is a struggle as they to overcome their flaws and make something out of their shiftless lives. Linney was nominated for an Oscar as a single mother trying to build a life out of perpetual setbacks. The soundtrack features several songs from Steve Earle, who knows a thing or two about turmoil. (2000)

Zodiac  – David Fincher’s story of the serial killer that spooked the Bay Area in the 1970s. Jake Gyllenhaal is a newspaper cartoonist who starts out trying to decode the murderer’s cryptic messages and ends up more obsessed with finding the killer than the police officer (Mark Ruffalo) assigned to the case. Fincher gets the grisliness out of the way early and delivers an unsparing crime procedural; the inclusion of Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man on the soundtrack is inspired. (2007)

They barely missed the cut: High Fidelity, Oldboy, Adaptation and Up

Best Releases Three or Four Decades Late

Army of Shadows – Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic of The French Resistance, released in Europe in the late 1960s made going underground heroic and cool. It ushered in a much-deserved reassessment of Melville’s place in The French New Wave. (2006)

Killer of Sheep – the life of a Los Angeles slaughterhouse worker in black and white with one of the best scores in film history. Charles Burnett’s film sat in a vault at UCLA for 30 years until it was released on video by Milestone/New Yorker Video. (2007)

Underrated, Forgotten or Worth a Second Look

24-Hour Party People – Steve Coogan nails it as the riotously self-possessed Tony Wilson, the television host who sired the Manchester music scene in the late 1970s. Michael Winterbottom adeptly recalls a flowering cultural moment that was both depressing and inspirational. (2002)

The Bridge – Eric Steel’s documentary about why the Golden Gate Bridge has become Ground Zero for suicides. More than that though, it’s about those left behind and trying to make sense of the profoundly tragic. (2006)

The Cell – The acting isn’t much (Jennifer Lopez playing a psychologist and Vince Vaughn playing it straight) and the plot machinations are absurd but Tarsem Singh’s movie about the subconscious of a serial killer is loaded with visual explosions from start to finish. (2000)

The Claim – When you sell off your wife and baby daughter for a gold mine it’s just a matter of time before it comes back to bite you, even in the pre-Information Age. There’s no escaping karma on that one. Michael Winterbottom’s version of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge is unforgettable. The icy turn-of-the-century Canadian landscape is the ideal backdrop for this morality tale. (2000)

The Dish – What role did Australia play in the first moon landing? Well, the country put up a satellite interface in a remote desert. Sam Neill plays one of the technicians who helps the locals prepare for and cope with their day in the, uhh, sun. Patrick Warburton is winning as the American liaison. (2001)

Everything is Illuminated – The movie based on what might be the best novel of the decade barely registered at the box office. Eugene Hutz steals the movie as Elijah Wood’s linguistically-challenged guide and Liev Schreiber’s debut behind the camera is extremely faithful to Jonathan Safran Foer’s source material. (2005)

Heaven – It came and went in the blink of an eye, but Cate Blanchett is a bald vigilante aided and abetted by police-officer Giovanni Ribisi. Impossible to categorize as an action pic for the art house crowd (or is it vice versa?), Tom Tykwer’s movie merits another consideration. (2002)

Idiocracy – Mike Judge’s futuristic comedy about what happens to a society that spends decades rewarding impulse and hubris over intellect and honesty. Sound familiar? (2005)

The Illusionist – In pre-World War I Vienna Edward Norton plays a magician who astonishes and taunts royalty (Rufus Sewell) and law enforcement (Paul Giamatti). It was overshadowed by The Prestige which was released the same year, but it is better shot, better acted and without the cop-out ending of Christopher Nolan’s film. (2006)

Innocence – After his wife dies a man looks up his lost love from over forty years ago. She has married and is living a comfortable life. Now in their 70s, they try to pick up where they left off. Paul Cox’s film of hope, death, loss, regret and risk tugs at your heart and never lets go. (2001)

Last Orders – A London butcher (Michael Caine) instructed his best friends (Tom Courtenay, David Hemmings and Bob Hoskins) to throw his ashes into the water at Margate beach. His son (Ray Winstone) joins them as they make the journey, recollecting about what was and what might have been. The type of small, touching film that big stars don’t seem to make anymore. (2001)

LIE – Paul Dano, in a pre-There Will Be Blood role plays a teenager who sits on a bridge above the Long Island Expressway. He has nothing, so when a dubious character, the slimy Brian Cox, offers him some semblance of normalcy, he takes it. (2001)

Made – Jon Favreau’s comedy is a follow up to Swingers which again features him and Vince Vaughan. This time they’re playing wanna-be mafiosos hired by Peter Falk to cut a deal with Sean Combs. The repoire of the castcast is terrific and the movie is even funnier with the audio commentary on (by Favreau and Vaughn). (2001)

Our Daily Bread – A dialogue-free documentary about the mechanized, industrialized nature of food production. Make sure you eat before viewing. (2006)

The Proposition – Set in late 19^th century Australia, the underappreciated Ray Winstone is magnetic as a frontier lawman determined to bring peace to his town. A group of four brothers has terrorized the locals and Winstone urges two of them to turn in the oldest, who is the ringleader. This sounds like a traditional Western but Nick Cave’s bloody and depraved script is accompanied by a setting that invites comparisons to Antonioni. (2006)

Reign Over Me – Almost all of Adam Sandler’s comedic characters are emotionally-stunted man-boys. His character in Mike Binder’s film is also a shell of a man, mumbling his way around New York City on a scooter, donning headphones to keep the outside world away. Don Cheadle is his usual superb self playing a dentist, trying to find out what’s gone wrong with Sandler, his old college roommate. In the course of reaching out to Sandler, Cheadle must face problems in his own life. (2007)

Sweet Land – In 1920s Minnesota a beautiful German woman arrives to marry a Norwegian farmer. He speaks little English and she speaks none. This is the least of their troubles as her ethnicity, in light of World War I, gives the rest of the community pause. Ali Selim’s feature debut is quiet, elegant and assured. (2006)

The Widow of St. Pierre – Patrice Leconte’s tale of redemption set in the (then) French colony of Newfoundland in the 1850s. Emir Kusterica plays a drunk sentenced to death for a murder. But time passes before the guillotine can arrive from France. Slowly, the community, represented by Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil, comes to see the murderer in a different light. (2001)

The Yards – James Gray’s story of corruption in the Queens rail yards was unjustly ignored by audiences on its release. Perhaps it was because the star, Mark Wahlberg, was an unproven quantity as a dramatic actor (Ok, some might say he still is), but he more than holds his own among James Caan, Ellen Burstyn, Faye Dunaway, Charlize Theron and Joaquin Phoenix. (2000)

A Double Feature About Women Living on the Margins

Frozen River and Wendy and Lucy -  Melisso Leo and Michelle Williams try to save their son and dog, respectively, while staring some hard truths in the face. (Both released in 2008)

Actors of the Decade—Gael Garcia Bernal and Philip Seymour Hoffman

Actresses of the Decade – Cate Blanchett, Laura Linney and Kate Winslet

Directors of the Decade – Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Christopher Nolan

Overrated

Brokeback Mountain – A movie more concerned with its message than advancing the story in a cinematic way. The script is clunky (saved by Heath Ledger’s performance) and for a movie intended to bust stereotypes, it’s comprised of supporting characters who are exactly that.

Knocked Up – Where The 40-Year-Old Virgin was a sweet, bromance about the complexities of dating, this was self-indulgent. A stoner who lives with other porn-living potheads hooks up with a successful television producer? That’s a shaky premise to begin with and impossible to ignore whenever the two leads start talking about child rearing. Why weren’t women insulted by this movie?

Lost in Translation – Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson are displaced Americans in Tokyo. It’s a Jim Jarmusch movie done by Sofia Coppola. One Jarmusch is plenty thank you very much.

Mulholland Drive – What’s this movie about? No, really somebody tell me.

Movie that’s aged the worst – Crash. Only five years old and the tale of race and circumstance in Los Angeles already feels quaint.

And what of Wes Anderson? – His four films (three live-action and one animated) are entertaining, but they’re all riffs on a similar theme—highly stylized portraits of fractured families done to great soundtracks. They all made my best of the year list when released, but Anderson, so far anyway, has been content to have his characters talk about their struggles rather than show them.

Television (Still a vast wasteland)

The conversation begins and ends with The Wire. If you haven’t seen it you have deprived yourself of storytelling on par with Charles Dickens, but more visual. There’s no point in spilling more cyber-ink on it as countless others have extolled its virtues. So watch it. Now. You’re welcome.

The two best documentaries of the past ten years originally aired on television. Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home revealed every available side of Bob Dylan including a few that Mr. Zimmerman would rather have kept under wraps. Scorsese seemed to talk to everyone who ever had anything to do with Dylan.

The other great doc was Spike Lee’s agonizing, thorough, poetic story of the debacle and failure of our government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. It’s not hyperbolic to call When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts an act of public service.

OK…if I must choose…a baker’s dozen…(I actually already tipped my hand above by adding a clip after the summary)

WALL-E, Amelie, The Dark Knight, Memento, Amores Perros, In America, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Moulin Rouge! There Will Be Blood, The Lives of Others, Waking Life, You Can Count on Me and Lilya 4-ever.

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly-changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
— Chris McCandless (or Alexander Supertramp)

Ever see a door and wonder what’s behind it?  Sometimes there are doors you just don’t want to open and other times there are doors that scream, “Open me, please”.  Funny thing is though, you’ll never know what’s inside until you open it.  One of my favorite sayings came from Chris McCandless, the young man who left everything behind to experience living in the wild; Alaska. He said, “The core of man’s spirit comes from new experiences”.  I believe that. But to experience something new you have to open a door and accept what’s behind it.  Unfortunately for Chris, after discovering that the wild door to Alaska wasn’t what he wanted, it closed and locked behind him and he never came back.

I’m pretty sure Chris would be the first to tell you that he didn’t regret opening that door.  He just made the mistake of running across the threshold a little too quickly.  Lesson learned.  Be prepared for new experiences and open those doors, but step inside carefully.

Estallar una botella de champagne contra su casco es el bautizo habitual de un navío. Cuentan los marineros que esta tradición augura para el buque un futuro inequívoco de buenaventura. Por el contrario, si el vidrio soporta el impacto y no derrama su áureo brebaje, se avecina una desgracia inesquivable. Se habría inaugurado entonces un cuaderno de bitácora con tragedia asegurada. Pues bien, hoy en Mundo en ruta hacemos lo propio. Comenzamos nuestro viaje con la desdichada historia de Christopher McCandless. Considérelo, si se quiere, un reto a la superstición. La insolencia natural esperable en el descreimiento de un vagabundo errante.

Lo cierto es que creemos que el espíritu de este joven encarna, mejor que nadie, la aspiración idiosincrática de este blog. La vida de McCandless no corresponde al relato de una fábula lejana; la cercanía temporal de su aventura nos hace aún más comprensible, y todavía más humana, la fuerza irrestricta de sus convicciones. Graduado con honores en la Universidad de Emory (Georgia, EE.UU.) en 1990, perteneció a la primera generación que se enfrentó a la desvalorización absoluta a la que había dado paso el despegue de la posmodernidad. La globalización, la sociedad abierta y el fin de la Historia comenzaban a hacer sus estragos. Una parte de la juventud – la mejor, sin duda – ya no veía nada más allá del sacrosanto nace-compra-trabaja-consume-muere. Nacían los bien conocidos tiempos del anhelo por pasado, la frustración por presente y la incertidumbre por futuro. Christopher, lector ávido e insaciable, halló una expresión atemporal de esta realidad en la novela Walden de H.D.Thoreau: “más que el amor, el dinero o la fama, deseo la verdad. Me senté a una mesa donde había manjares exquisitos y vino en abundancia, rodeado de comensales obsequiosos, pero carente de verdad y sinceridad. Me alejé de esa mesa inhóspita sintiendo todavía hambre. La hospitalidad era tan fría como el hielo”. McCandless subrayó esas palabras en el libro del célebre escritor anarquista.

A pesar de haber cosechado un éxito académico sobresaliente y gozar de una posición social privilegiada – su padre era ingeniero de la NASA y su madre formaba parte del equipo de una gran corporación aeronáutica –, Chris decidió virar el rumbo de su sino. Sin previo aviso, donó los 24.000 $ que había ahorrado, destruyó sus tarjetas de crédito y quemó sus documentos. A los 22 años abandonó su identidad y adoptó el nombre de Alexander Supertramp. Así, emprendió un camino hacia la libertad cuya máxima aspiración era la reconciliación con la naturaleza, lejos de una civilización perversa hasta la médula. De esta forma, inició la aventura hacia su destino soñado: vivir como un asceta en la tierra de la virgen e indómita Alaska. Era la llamada de la selva de su adorado Jack London.

En su huida hacia el norte, Supertramp atravesó, entre otros lugares, Arizona, California y Dakota del Sur. Completó en su ruta una gesta memorable cuando descendió en canoa por el Gran Cañón del Colorado hasta alcanzar las costas del Golfo de California. En abril de 1992, tras dos años de travesía, llegó haciendo autostop a la ciudad de Fairbanks (Alaska). Fue entonces cuando materializó su sueño y, al fin, se adentró caminando en soledad por los bosques de la tierra helada. Allí sobrevivió al eterno frío septentrional y vivió, durante meses, en simbiosis absoluta con un medio hostil hasta lo imposible. Sin embargo, su alma libre tampoco descubrió en la tundra la ansiada paz y, por ello, decidió volver. Jamás lo logró.

Su cadáver en descomposición fue hallado junto a su diario, su cámara fotográfica y sus libros en el interior de un refugio. Con ellos, y con el testimonio de todos aquellos que encontró en su camino, podemos reconstruir hoy su odisea en Mundo en ruta. Y es que, el nombre de Christopher McCandless alcanzó notoriedad pública cuando Jon Krakauer narró su viaje en la novela Hacia rutas salvajes. Asimismo, la magistral reconstrucción cinematográfica homónima dirigida por Sean Penn en 2007 contribuyó a ensalzar la figura de McCandless a la categoría de mito. Así pues, con tal recomendación fílmica – y, por supuesto, musical a cargo del siempre genial Eddie Vedder – cerramos este pequeño homenaje a Chris McCandless o, mejor dicho, Alexander Supertramp.

I remember feeling quite haunted the first time I saw this image after watching the wonderful film, Into The Wild. The film itself was very well done and I was quite taken aback by the story. Seeing this image at the end of the movie and realizing it was in fact a true story just heightened the impact of the film for me and began my quest of finding out everything I could about the story of this inspirational man.

For those who have not seen the film Into The Wild or read the book of the same name Chris Mccandless was a very intelligent man who always shined academically. In 1990, He donated $24,000 that was meant for his college fund given to him by his parents, to Oxfam after graduating and began his travels under the name Alexander Supertramp.

This blog post seems apt given the nature of my previous posts about the way the world is and Alexander is someone who acted on these qualms by escaping his life and ‘living off the land.’ Alexander almost drifted through his adventures; hitchhiking a lot of the way and meeting many people in the process. He would stop to work if he needed money for equipment and then move on whenever he felt ready.

It’s hard to describe quite what it is that makes me so found of his adventures and ideals. I guess its the freedom that he so often illustrated, that nothing had to be set in stone and that we can so easily just fall into the repetitiveness of many of life’s ’shoulds’ and ‘ought tos’ It is so common (myself included) to hear many people complaining about many things but doing very little to change because “that’s just the way it is.”

Alexander is someone who captures the freedom, adventure and self-sufficiency of us all, but unfortunately it is something which is so rarely put into action. I believe that many of the worlds aspects has changed how we are as people for the worst. We live by expected norms and are afraid to take risks and listen to our own voice over those of others.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth

Henry David Thoreau quotes (American Essayist, Poet and Philosopher, 1817-1862)

I think this quote can be adapted not just to communication but our way of life too. If we are true to ourselves and those around us then I think that things would be in such a better place than we currently stand. Unfortunately we have created a society which is run by greed, lies, profit and power and when something is based on these things, we get to a position like we are in today and I think there has to be a climax where all this changes and we have to re-find our true values.

As always, I will take my words as a kick-start to re-tune my values and live by the ways that I think are true but I think it always important to be aware of ourselves and those around us and the relationships we have and create. If we do good to ourselves and those around us then it will not take long for this to become the norm and base our society on much stronger and longer lasting values.

October 17, 2009

Dear readers,

I always start out writing September in the date. Then I remember that more time has passed and I change it. It’s not an annoying habit actually. Sort of endearing.

Things haven’t been great lately, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m expecting something mind-blowing to make up for all this boohooing.

It’s so hot. Just yesterday it was raining and cold and winter was announcing its arrival and then, KABAMM the weather remembered that it was Western Day and decided to dress up with hot hot sunshine. I forgot to trick Sushi into hiding, but it’s for the better I suppose. Every time I read Proverbs and I see how the man who leaves wayward traps for others ends up suffering instead I think about all the torture I give Sushi.

After school I went to talk to the counselor and it got kind of emotional. Like “cry me a river” emotional. And it surprised me because, where did all of these tears come from? I’m so confused about what is troubling me. I know the problems are there, but what are they? My brain has gotten especially good at blocking out my troubles.

I am so confused.

I came home and just couldn’t blog about it yet, so I went to the most mindless blogging I know. Therefore, Ernest is up and running once more. It’s so weird to read his old posts and laugh and then realize that they’re…my…old posts.

We’ve started watching “Into the Wild” in English and I like this movie already. What got me was the part with Superapple. And then, the cherry on the sundae – when Emile Hirsch looked into the camera. Way to make breaking the rules work, and resonate. I can’t get over it.

Honestly though, I don’t know how I feel about Chris McCandless. Some people are annoyed because he’s stupid, others love him for what he did. I think that I’ll have to finish the book before I decide.

I’m trying not to let my jadedness with school activities get in the way of my sister’s wonder at it. It’s all new to her – Western Day, spirit days, International Day. Stuff that I ignore because how many times have we gone through this already?

My spirit feels sore. But I am determined to get through this.

Edit: A car trip with my family makes everything better.

I guess now I’m quietly contemplative. Is it too cliche to say that I don’t know who I am right now? Thank god for church tomorrow. But I can’t keep relying on a once-a-week meeting to keep me going.

Oh dear goodness mood swings. Hello there old enemy – it’s been a while.

Love,
Katherine

P.S. You know when you can’t stop listening to a song – like it’s essential to keeping you alive? That’s what’s happening right now.

Chris,

You were a so fucking bright guy. You’d chosen to live your life doing things that you believed. I really admire you. You were (are) a fucking inspiration to me. I hope someday I can be a half of who you were. Thanks for show me how to live. I can feel I’m alive.

With love, GNM

PS. I love you and I hope you’d found what you were looking for. And sorry for my fucking bad english.

10/11/09

Empty Pockets Will Allow a Greater Sense of Wealth

Embarking on a self-proclaimed search for ‘happiness,’ Chris McCandless quite literally followed another man’s book and perhaps misinterpreted Thoreau’s teachings, simultaneously acting in a very anti-Emersonian fashion by adhering so devoutly to the mantras of ‘man in nature’ and, ironically, ‘individual.’  By so decidedly throwing himself ‘Into the Wild,’ Chris attempted to break free from the constraints and influences of society and to immerse himself in the untamed, the inexplicable, the wild: nature. ‘If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.’  Chris McCandless fuses the Emersonian inner nature and the Thoreauvian focus on the physicality of the wilderness into a quest for this finality of happiness that unfortunately results in his death.

The Emersonian self is very much the embodiment of the abstract aspect of the ideal of individualism; that quest for achieving something greater than yourself by looking within, to the Soul, through the lens of nature as everything ‘Not Me.’ Society ‘is a wave.  The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed, does not’ (Self-Reliance, 136) and not necessarily something to be avoided but simply to live within, and not live from.  Independence springs from self-reliance, yet self-reliance is not the evasion of societal influences but rather, to Emerson, the ability to reside among those influences and within one’s own thoughts without the necessity of reassurance, and to be stable and not swayed by ‘other men’s transcripts of their readings’ (The American Scholar, 60).  Emerson demands that one speak to nature on his own but not necessarily be apart from society; rather, he should take only minor influences from the ‘interpretations of other men’ and not be controlled as fully by those influences as Chris McCandless allowed himself to be, and then later attempted to completely eradicate.  Some intrinsic balance must be found.

The Thoreauvian self, and indeed Thoreau’s entire haphazard and contradictory genius, is built around the theory of nature as something mysterious and wholly more beautiful than the human self.  Thoreau is essentially an echo of Emerson, yet in a more frantic and spontaneous way, which perhaps explains Chris McCandless’s endless fascination with his work.  While Emerson distinctly categorizes the Soul and everything but the Soul as separate, Thoreau defines one in terms of the other and makes them out to be created of the same matter.  Chris takes Thoreau’s idea of finding ‘his own [human] nature’ within the wilderness and sets off to do, quite literally, that.  On the theme of the influences of literature, of the many thoughtful quotations from The Perks of Being a Wallflower perhaps the most so is, ‘even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn’t really change the fact that you have what you have.’  It is not so much the situation you place or find yourself in, but rather what you do with that situation.  It is no more difficult or easy to discover oneself in the frozen Alaskan wilderness than from a downtown apartment.  Emerson sees this, but Chris McCandless does not, and this is his ultimate downfall.  He ironically still allows society to influence him beyond his own consideration, so that he only sits down to think for himself in the final moments of his life, scribbling his realizations in the margins of other men’s work.

Thoreau’s struggle to define the individualist approach while camping out in Emerson’s yard is a parallel to Chris’s reliance on ‘survival’ skills he learned from other people, and even the bus that was his refuge as opposed to a shelter of his own construction.  Chris’s idea of Thoreauvian ‘escapism’ very much misses the point of Thoreau’s teachings; ‘to set it down to escapism is, of course, to misconstrue what happened’ (Walden, 1954, 363).  Perhaps his readings of Thoreau were quite the opposite of Emerson’s ideal Scholar.  So bent on escaping the trappings of society as literally as possible, he missed the figurative significance of Thoreau’s urgency for ‘truth’ and failed to realize until his final moments that ‘happiness is only real when shared.’  ‘You are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships,’ Chris initially asserts, ‘God’s place is all around us; it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.’

To view McCandless’s story through a lens of the Thoreauvian, Emersonian, or a combination of the two might be drawing out of context his situation, for actions are largely influenced by the times in which one lives, and so Emerson, Thoreau, and McCandless had very different social stigmas and driving forces about them.  While of course Chris’s actions may have been a misinterpretation of the philosophers’ ideas, is not Emerson’s thesis that man is a combination of all of the ideas he has heard before, and that the importance is not the ideas themselves but the synthesis of them into something unique and individual?  Ultimately, the work of a philosopher bears more significance to the reader than the intended message of the author, because it is more the reader who will utilize the ideas than the author.  As admirable an attempt, though, as Chris McCandless’s was, to forge a new identity in the wilderness, he could just as easily have stayed where he was, kept societal interactions to a minimum and thereby ‘discovered himself’ and that all-elusive happiness.  Instead, he thrust himself into a wilderness as inhospitable as the ideas he was trying to foster.

The follies which a man regrets most in his life, are those which he didn’t commit when he had the opportunity.

~ Helen Rowland

When I think of crazy, I think of Chris McCandless. He would be almost nine months older than me, and alive, had he been not a little less crazy but a bit more prepared. Instead, he walked into the Denali National Park and Preserve without a compass, without a map, and with a plan incomprehensible to anyone but himself. I can appreciate his passion, the way he made the deliberate choice to abandon the upside of advantage and hit the road in pursuit of something besides what others envisioned for him. But in attaining the rewards that accompany the follies of youth, he paid the ultimate price.

I first encountered his story within the pages of writer and mountaineer Jon Krakauer’s 1996 book Into the Wild. Still in my 20s and on the verge of major changes both professionally and familial, the story of Chris McCandless struck a tender nerve. Perhaps it was because at that point I knew my chances of experiencing a personal hiatus of the sorts he chose were slim to none. I had a kid and a wife. Doors were opening for the career change that I’d been anticipating. And people in my position didn’t just drop everything and go on a walkabout looking for inspiration. I’d never had the mental and physical resources for that sort of adventure anyway. But a part of me secretly wished that an opportunity to do what Chris did had come along. Without the tragic ending.

The best part of Krakauer’s book, however, is his own account of climbing the Devils Thumb. These two chapters, sandwiched between episodes of Chris McCandless’ unfolding journey, spoke to me for the simple reason that he had survived, and come off the mountain wiser about our primordial hunger for all-things-crazy. Krakauer writes . . .

All that held me to the mountainside, all that held me to the world, were two thin spikes of chrome molybdenum stuck half an inch into a smear of frozen water, yet the higher I climbed, the more comfortable I became. Early on a difficult climb, especially a difficult solo climb, you constantly feel the abyss pulling at your back. To resist takes a tremendous conscious effort; you don’t dare let your guard down for an instant. The siren song of the void puts you on edge; it makes your movements tentative, clumsy, herky-jerky. But as the climb goes on, you grow accustomed to the exposure, you get used to rubbing shoulders with doom, you come to believe in the reliability of your hands and feet and head. You learn to trust your self-control . . .

It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it. When I decided to go to Alaska that April, like Chris McCandless, I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams. And I lived to tell my tale.

Do I regret that I have no such story to share? That I never went skydiving? Never sang before Ed McMahon? Am I sad that most of the crazy things I’ve done occurred vicariously – adventures lived through the lives of others? Maybe just a little. But unlike Chris McCandless, I have lived to tell my tale. If you’re reading these words, then so have you. Crazy is as crazy does. And though my crazy is not terribly exciting, it is my crazy. These are my hands and feet, clinging to the slippery slopes of my pathway up the mountain of life, and yet this mountain doesn’t define me. It’s what I’ve learned along the ascent that matters . . .

*****

Remember my tattoo? Well, I am sad, though not completely surprised, to report that it doesn’t mean what was intended. I did some digging online and came across a Chinese forum with an entire section devoted to translating tattoos. I posted a photo of my tattoo and the moderator very kindly wrote, “Sorry, you’re a victim of the gibberish Chinese font. Interestingly enough, the first two characters (i.e. those corresponding to GJ) are 武術 (wushu) which is a word, and means martial art. Unfortunately though they are badly drawn. The third ‘character’ 氵is actually not a character in its own right, rather it is what is called a radical (a common part of many characters). The radical is known as “three drops of water” and if a character contains this radical, it usually is related to water in some way.“

So I have a poorly-drawn tattoo that means, literally, martial art, hydro-.  Sweet!

He continues, “It looks like they were going to write a word related to water like perhaps hydroelectic or hydroponic or hydrate, but then stopped before they finished. And then imagine that maybe all the t’s were written backwards, or the rt of ‘martial’ was combined into one letter that looked more like a backwards h rather than two separate letters rt, and that the l in martial looked more like a backslash \ than an l. That’s kind of what you’ve got tattooed.” So I think a new tattoo, one that actually means something, may be in order . . .

*****

My heartfelt thanks to Pamela, Sally, Travis, Christine, Ed and Erika for their contributions to the “Just A Little Crazy” series. I hope you enjoyed reading their posts as much as I did, and that you took the opportunity to contemplate your own craziness. So, a question: Would you enjoy reading more Crazy posts? I’m thinking about making this a by-weekly thing and inviting a few more folks to contribute. Let me know what you think by registering your vote below. And if you feel led, leave a comment or send me an email to share further thoughts about the series. In the meantime, have a great day . . .

[photo credit]

i watched into the wild yesterday, and it made me yearn for an adventure.

there have been a lot of times where i’ve wanted to pack a backpack with the bare necessities and just hoof it around the country, with no itinerary and no one to be accountable to. traveling in the wild with a group would be fun and all, but i think doing it alone would make the experience more pure, in a sense; like because you’re experiencing it alone and don’t have other people to share it with, the intensity and profundity is at its maximum height. but i would even be content (nay, happy) to just train-hop around the country like kerouac did back in the day.

photo by philip scott andrews

every once in a while, i like to daydream about living that kind of life, exploring the alaskan wilderness in the spring or stealthily jumping onto moving trains in the middle of the night, but i come crashing back to reality when i remember how different the world is now, and how my sex has an effect on everything i do, or even dream of doing. kerouac jumped on trains in the 40’s when a dollar could go a lot further and trains were fairly safe, and chris mccandless didn’t deal with people very often in his travels. and of course, they were both men. on top of the fear i would feel (maybe constantly) if i were completely alone in my travels, my mother would never let go to any location remote or un-remote by myself, no matter how old i was. because she knows how unsafe it is for a woman alone. and i hate to admit that there are things i can’t do, but i don’t even know if my weak arms could pull me onto a train without help, let alone survive a flash flood or kill and skin an animal for food. and that depresses me, that my life experiences are always going to be limited by my biology.

there is a breeze that is blowing in through my window
it is chilled and scented with the sweet aroma of freshly fallen rain drops
soothing are the sounds that now fill my ears
the rustling of the leaves in the trees
it, for the moment, hides the sounds of this city

an illusion is made that i am no longer here
and that is probably what i enjoy the most
no cars, no people, no cigarette smoke left
all that is here is the breeze and the smell of the rain
perhaps that is all a man needs to comfort him

maybe chris had it right on his quest
“to kill the false being within”
nature and man have lost a connection here
nobody appreciates or knows of its beauty
beneath concrete floors
it is a maze of man
i long for something else, something more beautiful

a sunset over a field of flax
the crickets and grasshoppers soothing sounds
the wind over the prairie and the swaying crops
an image i hold on to now, here
the image carried along the cool spring breeze
soon i will be home
soon i will see it all again
soon.

I don’t often do this, at least not on my blog, but I really feel I need to recommend a movie I saw: “Into the wild”. One of the best movies I’ve ever seen. For so many reasons. So inspiring, thoughtful, happy and heartbreakingly sad. And based on a true story, I like that, even though they tend to make the movie versions more Hollywood and dramatic.

I sometimes see movies that go straight to my heart and changes me in some way. The way I see myself, the world or people around me. “Into the wild” was one of those movies. A must see. How I wish I could meet a man like Chris McCandless.

The trailer doesn’t make it justice but here it is

Some quotes from the film:

“I’m going to paraphrase Thoreau here… rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness… give me truth.”

“Some people feel like they don’t deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.”

“The core of mans’ spirit comes from new experiences.”

“Mr. Franz I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don’t want one.”

[written into book] “Happiness only real when shared.”

Oh, and I’ve stolen the header to my blog from the movie